It was a nice gathering at the Press Room, The usual crowd was there, and the kitchen rhythm section was in full autumn bloom. I enjoy the large turnout that was gathered and crammed in there at the Maritime Folk Festival but this was much more laid back.

There was even a set of music hall songs, given me a chance to refresh Pity the Downtrodden Landlord before I present it at an urban folk festival in NYC next Saturday.

Package unwrapped (my sister owns shares in a tape company...) - Blind Faith and early Moody Blues CDs, a couple movie DVDs ("Eat, Pray, Love", "Wilde"...), a couple books, and a great cat draft stopper. My sister and I are always shipping books to each other. I should probably take the small package I have for her to the post office today... And Tom, who is doing some cleaning out of papers, found an article that he wrote back in 1994 that he's been looking for for years.

My first song is titled Tramps (Chanty for Steam) by Ron Baxter of Fleetwood, UK. I think it's a keeper -- good chorus and interesting details about triple expansion steam cargo ships from around the turn of the 19th century.

Great to hear Justine leading songs again. Ernie is certainly making good progress on leading traditional shanties; it's not easy to pick the right key to power a shanty in even a friendly sea music session and he nailed several. In contrast, some of the new ones I'm working up need, I think, to be pitched in a higher key. Or maybe the room was just extra noisy.

There was some interest in a couple of the songs I led last Saturday, and I promised to post some details, so here's what I know:

The song Nellie J Banks was written by Lennie Gallant. There's a rather rollicking version of it done by the Killicks that you can find on You Tube, and I've toned it down a bit for the way I like it. The Nellie J. Banks was an actual rum runner of some note, and was captained by Isreal Lillington. Her rum running days were ended when she was captured by the government on August 9, 1938.

I don't know who actually put "Hang On Jon" to music, and the only person I've heard do it is Bob Stuart, who did it at the 2011 PMFF, so it may have been him. The story line is derived (but abbreviated) from the children's tall tale John Tabor's Ride, written by Blair Lent in 1966 (there is another children's tale of the same name by Edward C Day, but that weaves a different story line). I don't know why Bob changed the name from John to Jon, but he seems to have. You can hear him do this song on his reverbnation page. I'll try to contact him to ask if he wrote it.

Thanks for the reference to Bok's recording. I went to my old vinyl collection and pulled out that 1972 album. In the pamphlet that accompanies the record, Bok credits Bob Stuart with writing it (copyright 1972), so I guess that resolves the issue. Bok refers to a "John Taylor", as being the character in the song ... and to tell the truth, that is what the name sounds like to me in Bob's singing, so it probably is how Bob wrote it. However, the children's tale/legend is of a "John Tabor", and Bob titles his song as "Hang on Jon". So a few differences in first and last names. Bok acknowledges that he may not have stayed true to the original lyrics, and that "you should still hear Bob sing it", which happily, I did. I'm planning on staying with Bob Stuart's lyrics, but changing the name from Taylor to Tabor.

I obviously wasn't there, but the description of "Nellie J Banks" made me want to look it up. The tune sounded extremely familiar. Then I realized: the song is on one of the first albums of maritime music I ever bought. It was a compilation that included a recording of the song by a group called "Jar O Comfort." Excellent song, thanks for the reminder of it!